Soon iPads will become much more useful – iOS 4.2, which is being released this month will include multitasking, folders and a number of new features. Today Apple released the gold master release, which means that iOS4.2 is just about done. In the past a GM version of iOS was typically released a week before the official version became available…

The iPad’s biggest criticism up to now has been the lack of multitasking, and that the iPad seems to have to play catchup with the iPhone up to now, which has been running on iOS4 for a few months already. I went through my biggest iPad issues a few weeks ago.

Initial reports says that the great new Airplay feature is working in this latest release, which enables you to stream your video to close-by AppleTV. Its as easy as starting the video on the iPad – then click the Airplay icon, then select the device you want to push the video to. This will work with videos stored on the iPad, as well as the Youtube app.

Airprint is also ready – which will enable you to print to any shared printer on your network. Apps will need to be aware of Airprint – but it will be a very much demanded feature, so expect support from your favourite applications soon enough. The printer would have to shared at present, but HP is currently developing printers that will support iOS.

Small changes are everywhere – the pop up multitasking tray would also get the brightness and volume controls. The orientation switch on the iPad is changing to a mute switch as well, with the orientation lock switch shifting to the taskbar.

Off course all of these features will also be made available to iPhone4 and iPhone 3GS. If you want a more detailed rundown of all the new iOS 4.2 features, I recommend you go look at iLounge‘s brilliant post.